While the federal mandate does not explicitly require booster shots, the national booster rate for nursing home staff was 44 percent as of March 2022.
Some nursing home operators warned that requiring health care workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 could contribute to staffing shortages. Data suggest that the vaccine mandate has not exacerbated such shortages, however.
KFF analysts find that 28 percent of nursing homes in the U.S. reported staffing shortages as of March 2022, down slightly from the peak in January 2022 where nearly one in every three nursing homes reported a shortage.
Staff shortages in nursing homes are a longstanding problem that predates the pandemic. In a separate analysis also released today, KFF analysts summarize federal and state standards related to nursing home staffing prior to COVID-19 and identify changes that states have made to minimum staffing requirements during the pandemic. They also examine state legislative and regulatory actions since the onset of the pandemic that directly affect worker wages and training requirements.
The Biden administration has announced plans to propose new federal minimum staffing adequacy regulations in the next year, and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine recently recommended minimum staffing levels as part of its comprehensive report on ways to improve nursing home quality.
Conditions and COVID-19 precautions in nursing homes remain a subject of heightened public interest since over one in five COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic has been in a long-term care facility. While the vaccine mandate remains in effect, litigation challenging the new rule is ongoing. Although cases in Texas and Florida were dismissed after the Supreme Court allowed the rule to take effect, cases in Missouri and Louisiana are still pending.
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